Matt, Christen, Derek & Rylie

Now that we are back home from our month long vacation in Boston, we are back to our routine of having "brain time" each day. I LOVE spending one-on-one time with each kid and teaching them!

These sweet eyes say "Come home soon, Daddy. We miss you!!"

While we had a great time in Boston for an extra 2 weeks, we definitely missed Matt and can't wait until we are all reunited back in Phoenix.

Matt came back from a two week trip to Australia. He got to hold a baby kangaroo.

Dinner at Cafe Rio after picking up Matt at the airport after arriving from Australia.
We are SO glad to have our family back together.

Matt brought the kids back some sweet presents from Australia. He bought Derek an authentic AFL jersey (Australian Rules Football League) of the Hawthorne Hawks team. Rylie got a penguin from the aquarium and some colored pencils and coloring book. I got 2 lbs of yummy Australian espresso beans. Matt bought himself a bottle of Millennium Falcon beer.

Derek set up all his Legos in his room on display.

Play date with Bella and Caden (1st one in over a month).

It hailed one evening in July!!! Not sure how that even happened, but the kids LOVED the hail. They were eating it. Eventually the hail turned into rain and they danced in the rain!!

Rylie needed a little extra help going to sleep one night so I gladly held her and rocked her while she fell asleep. That doesn't happen very often anymore so I jumped at the chance!

Went to Anthem to see fireworks! Love Rylie's wink!

snow cones as big as their heads

Happy 4th of July Popsicles after a fun swim!

LOVE the way Derek's hair looks during the summer when he has been in the sun.

It is such a fun dirty blonde color. I think it looks adorable!

Practicing keyboarding skills. Learning "home row"

naptime

Family Reading time...there have been a LOT of Star Wars books

Derek swam freestyle laps for 5 minutes straight!

One night we had surprise visitors...the Uithovens spent the night with us because their AC was broken. When Rylie woke up she was beyond thrilled to find Grace at the breakfast table with us!!!

We bought a new 2016 Toyota Sienna mini van!!! We LOVE it. We had outgrown our Honda CRV and love all the extra room we have with the new car. We had our neighbor Becca watch the kids for 6 hours while we bought the car. When we came home, Matt pulled into the driveway first with his Toyota Camry and the kids looked so disappointed. Then I pulled in with the new van and they were SO excited. They were jumping up and down and screaming with excitement. It was priceless. We took them for a special trip for milk shakes at In-N-Out Burger and they watch The Force Awakens while we drove. We are looking forward to many adventures with this van in the next several years.

Painting finger nails and toe nails...always a fun activity around here.

Love watching these 2 play together. They get along so well.

The Milennium Falcon was meeting up with Barbie!

HOCKEY!!!! Derek has improved so much in hockey this summer. He is skating with confidence and speed. He learned to do the practice skills such as supermans on the ice and getting up, skating in and out of mini tires, skating with a puck and stick...can't wait to see how he improve continues to improve next summer!

Some weeks Rylie came and hung out with us during Derek's hockey and some weeks she went to Grace's house for a playdate.

Pool fun!!!! We are very thankful that we changed our pool over to a salt water pool.

It is awesome! Daddy is the best at throwing the kids into the air!

Derek is working on the pool for us.

We met up with Bella and Caden while we were school supply shopping.

It made for a very fun time! Notice my wedding tiara that Rylie is wearing on her head! :)

Fun with a dollie...not only did they help me put together a storage container for our pool stuff outside...they they turned the dollie into a rocket ship and a doctor's office...great creativity.